Plasma and Oscillations. With Contributions in Memoriam Including a Complete Bibliography of His Works

274 Pages·1961·7.877 MB·English

by  C. Guy Suits (Eds.)

Irving Langmuir — Research Scientist
General Electric Research Laboratory — 1909-1957
Nobel Prize Winner-1932
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
IRVING LANGMUIR
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS IN MEMORIAM
INCLUDING
A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HIS WORKS
General Editor
C. GUY S U I TS
VICE-PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
Executive Editor
HAROLD E. WAY
CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
UNION COLLEGE
SCHENECTADY, N.Y.
Volume 5
PLASMA AND OSCILLATIONS
Published with the editorial assistance of the General Electric Co. by
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright for this compilation
©
1961
Pergamon Press Ltd.
Library of Congress Card No. 60-7068
Printed in Poland to the order of Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe-
by Drukarnia im. Rewolucji Pazdziernikowej, Warsaw
HONORARY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Chairman: Dr. C. GUY SUITS, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Deputy Chairmen: Prof. P. W. BRIDGMAN, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Sir ERIC RIDEAL, Imperial College, London, England
Prof. N. K. ADAM, Southampton University, Southampton, England
Members:
Prof. D. ALPERT, University of Illinois, Urbana, 111.
Dr. L. APKER, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Prof. J. BARBEEN, University of Illinois, Urbana, 111.
Dr. J. A. BECKER, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J.
Dr. K. B. BLODGETT, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Dr. NIELS BOHR, Copenhagen, Denmark
E. G. BowEN, CSIRO, Melbourne, Australia
Sir LAWRENCE BRAGG, Royal Institution, London, England
Dr. W. H. BRATTAIN, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J.
Prof. P. W. BRIDGMAN, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. H. R. BYERS, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.
Prof. A. H. COMPTON, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
Dr. W. D. COOLIDGE, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Prof. PETER DEBYE, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Dr. B. DERJAGUIN, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Moscow, USSR
Dr. L. A. DUBRIDGE, President, California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, Cal.
Dr. E. R. G. ECKERT, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.
Dr. HENRY EYRING, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
Dr. DAVID HARKER, Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, N.Y.
Dean J. H. HILDEBRAND, University of California, Berkeley, Cal.
Dr. A. W. HULL, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Sir WILLIS JACKSON, Metropolitan-Vickers, Trafford Park, England
Dr. ZAY JEFFRIES, Vice-President, General Electric Co. — retired,
Pittsfield, Mass.
Prof. A. F. JOFFE, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, USSR — deceased
Dr. K. H. KINGDON, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y.
Prof. V. K. LAMER, Columbia University, New York City, N.Y.
Dr. D. A. MACINNES, Rockefeller Institute, New York City, N.Y.
Dr. C. E. K. MEES, Honolulu, Hawaii
Dr. V. J. SCHAEFER, Munitalp Foundation, Schenectady, N.Y.
Prof. N. N. SEMENOV, Institute of Chemical Physics, Moscow, USSR
Dr. HARRY SOBOTKA, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, N.Y.
Dr. L. TONKS, General Electric, Pleasanton, Cal.
Dr. A. VON ENGEL, Oxford University, Oxford, England
Dr. WARREN WEAVER, Rockefeller Foundation, New York City, N.Y.
Dr. E. J. WORKMAN, President, New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology, Socorro, N.M.
Executive Editor:
Dr. HAROLD E. WAY, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.
FOREWORD
THE PLAN to publish a memorial to Irving Langmuir, including all of the
scientific output of his brilliant career in research, was announced to me by
Captain 1. R. Maxwell, managing director of Pergamon Press, late in 1958.
My associates and I were asked to aid the venture by providing editorial advice
and counsel, by enlisting the cooperation of scientific friends and acquaintan­
ces, and by assisting in the collection and identification of material. Our enthu­
siasm for the project and our willingness to cooperate sprang from two impor­
tant considerations.
First, Langmuir's career provides an outstanding example of how free,
but discriminating, inquiry in pure science may yield not only vital new know­
ledge and understanding of nature, but also a great bounty of practical use­
fulness for society. Secondly, Langmuir's associates hold him not only in great
respect, but in very great affection as well. Hence the preparation of these
volumes has been more than a service; it has been a labor of love.
The original plan was to pubUsh Langmuir's works in three or four volumes,
but for very good reasons, which developed during the course of the project,
the series has grown to twelve volumes. The quantity of Langmuir's published
scientific work proved to be far greater than we had estimated, and some
previously unpublished wartime research and reports on meteorological studies
were of such importance that their inclusion in the volumes was mandatory.
Moreover, some exceptionally interesting philosophical papers and publications
served to round out the literary portrait of Langmuir as a man and as a scientist.
My associate editors, Sir Eric Rideal and Professor P. W. Bridgman, have con­
tributed generously from their great wealth of knowledge and their intimate
acquaintance with Dr. Langmuir. It is a pleasant duty to acknowledge that the
many members of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board have participated
in this venture with enthusiasm, and that their editorial contributions to the
separate volumes have added tremendously to the appraisal and interpreta­
tion of Langmuir's collected works. I particularly want to acknowledge with
gratitude the valuable work of Professor Harold E. Way of Union College
who, in the capacity of Executive Editor, has carried the major task of assuring
that our responsibilities and commitments were fulfilled.
I first met Irving Langmuir in the General Electric Research Laboratory
when I joined the research staff in 1930, but our first meeting might equally
well have taken place on a ski hill in the Adirondacks, at Lake George where
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viii Foreword
he liked to spend the summer, or on a climb on Mt. Marcy, for he had a prevail­
ing love of the out-of-doors. Whether in the Laboratory or in the mountains,
an intense curiosity about natural phenomena constantly pervaded his thoughts.
In fact, I have never met anyone else who was so well coupled to nature.
I am sure that, like all observant people, Langmuir perceived the beauty
of nature as portrayed by the qualities of form, color, mass, movement, and
perspective. In addition, however, Langmuir was delighted and entranced
even more by the challenge to understand the working of nature as portrayed
in the phenomena of everyday life — clouds, ripples on water, bubbles in ice,
the temperature fluctuations of air and of water, the plastic quality of snow,
the flight of a deer fly, and the thousands of **simple" phenomena which nearly
everyone takes for granted. These manifestations of nature held endless fas­
cination for Langmuir, and he constantly challenged himself to explain basic
phenomena in terms of known laws of science. Of course, the same curiosity
characterized his work in the Laboratory, and hence, provided the unifying
motivation for his career, whether at **work" or at **play".
Langmuir's scientific work is so completely and perceptively described
and appraised in the separate volumes of this work that only a few general
comments and observations are appropriate, or indeed possible, at this point.
One striking feature of his research method was its instrumental simplicity.
Although his career extended into the glamour age of science, characterized
by large, impressive, and expensive machinery such as the cyclotron, the
synchrotron, and particle and radiation diffraction equipment, his own ex­
periments were almost invariably simple and uncluttered. He seemed posi­
tively attracted to simple experimental techniques, in refreshing contrast to
what sometimes appears to be a fashionable reliance on impressive and expen­
sive complexity of research equipment. His work with heat transfer in gases,
and later with electron emission phenomena from metals, employed laboratory
glassware of stark simplicity. His studies of surface films, especially films
on water, employed beautifully simple experimental equipment. The Labor­
atory work on aerosols and smokes, and later on the nucleation of supercooled
clouds, was all carried on with apparatus that could be assembled from the
equipment of a typical home. His classical experiments on the **speed of deer
fly" came about as close as possible to the string, wax, and paperclip approach
to science; yet they sufficed to establish the essential facts sought by the inves­
tigation. Probably few scientists, before or since Langmuir, have gained
so much important new knowledge of nature with such simple research equip­
ment.
Similarly, Langmuir preferred to work with a few collaborators, rather
than a large group or team of researchers, for this favoured a close contact
with the work on a participating basis. His ability to apply mathematical anal­
ysis to physical problems was of a high order, and he divided his time about
equally between experimental work and theoretical work. The combination
Foreword ix
of outstanding experimental and analytical ability which he possessed occurs
but rarely in a single individual; most scientists have somewhat greater interests,
aptitudes, and hence accomplishment in one area or the other.
Langmuir almost invariably worked on an intense basis and was generally
completely preoccupied with his current problems. His concentration was
exceptional, and he might pass you in the hall without seeing you. If you
reminded him of it, he would smile and acknowledge that he was highly excited
about some experiments that were in progress, or about some calculation
that was presenting some puzzling aspects.
We spend a good deal of time and thought now^adays on the question of
motivation for scientists, seeking to understand the source and character
of their drive. In Langmuir's case, one needs to inquire no further than his
curiosity. This pronounced trait provided an intense internal source of moti­
vation, which constantly drove him to inquire and probe and test hypotheses
until a pattern of understanding was developed. When he was on the trail
of an exciting mystery, which was usually the case, his intense concentration
was remarkable to behold.
Langmuir's career contributes much to our understanding of creative
output in research. For example, on the perennial question of creativity and
age, it has been held by some that the bulk of human creative work is accom­
plished in early adult life, say in the age bracket between 25 and 35 years. It is
probable that some purely statistical information might support this view.
However, I would disagree strongly with the corollary conclusion that creative
ability is characteristic of this age bracket. In the Laboratory, it is not unusual
for creative young workers to acquire a greater span of research guidance,
counselling, and even management responsibility as their career matures, and
hence their creative contribution will, to a corresponding degree, appear
in the work of others. I believe that in such cases scientists are generally not
less, but more creative with advancing age, frequently up to and even through
retirement. It is clear that purely statistical information would not readily
reveal this fact.
It is interesting to examine Langmuir's career as an example of a scientist
who remained in active research up to and through retirement, to see what
role age played in his output. In Volume XII we have depicted Langmuir's
achievements as a function of his age, using his scientific publications as evi­
dence of his gross scientific output, and his principal accomplishments as evi­
dence of his creative output. The resultant charts show remarkably constant
productivity throughout his scientific career, and even through retirement.
Throughout this period Langmuir published an average of five to six scientific
papers per year. His principal accomplishments, both scientific and practical,
took place almost uniformly over the period of his researches. Certainly no
"creative age" can be identified in his career. The example of Langmuir's
scientific history does not prove the general thesis, but from the observation
χ Foreword
of many research careers, I am persuaded that human creativity in science
is not a significant function of age.
Creative output, however, is a function of many other factors that comprise
the research environment. One important factor is the changing field of re­
search. Some of the most creative scientists in the history of the General Electric
Research Laboratory have worked intensively in one field for a period of some
years, and have then changed quite abruptly to a new field as a source of fresh
stimulation and new challenge. It is evident that in a period of 5 years, or so,
one can bring a fresh point of view to a new field, make a major contribution,
and perhaps exhaust one's ideas on the subject. At that point of fruition, there
is a great temptation to sit back and bask in a reputation for eminence which
has been estabhshed in a specialized field of science. The more courageous
scientist, however, will be challenged, or will, like Langmuir, challenge himself
to enter a new field. This requires courage, because in the new field he will
be a neophyte but, at the same time, a scientific entrepreneur with a reputation
at risk, and this risk may not pay off.
Langmuir's career exemplifies the courageous entrepreneur in science.
It would be difficult to find a common demoninator, except curiosity, in many
of the fields of science in which he made basic contributions. He never hesi­
tated to attack new fields, such as protein monolayers, the generation of smoke,
or meteorology, which were completely new and, hence, challenging territory
to him. In each of these diverse fields, and in a great many others, he has made
major basic contributions.
Some discussion of the very important applied aspects of Langmuir's scien­
tific work is appropriate. It is a fact that, although his prevailing motivation
in research was curiosity about all natural phenomena, he was always perceptive
of the practical usefulness of research resuhs, and he himself suggested pos­
sible practical applications of many of the new phenomena which he discovered.
He was generally able to communicate his enthusiasm to applied scientists
and engineers interested in the proposed application and to give them guidance
in its exploration.
It is interesting to speculate on the way that Langmuir's career might
have developed had he chosen an academic, rather than an industrial environ­
ment for his work in science. My personal beHef is that his research would,
in any environment, have resulted in a high order of scientific accomplishment.
Although he evidenced little interest in teaching, he was in fact an outstanding
teacher, and in a university he would have exerted a great influence on students
who might have been fortunate enough to be in contact with him. But I doubt
if an academic career for Langmuir would have, or could have, developed
the great bounty of useful results for society which did come from his exposure
to a creative industrial scientific environment. The human and economic
impact of gas-filled lamps, high-vacuum electron tubes, atomic-hydrogen
welding, space charge emission phenomena, techniques and discoveries in
Foreword xi
surface chemistry, thyratron arcs (with A. W. Hull), and cloud seeding tech­
niques has been very great indeed, and in most of these developments the
influence of his research environment has been unmistakable.
Wherever Langmuir worked, or might have worked, the world is vastly
better because of him, and both his former associates and colleagues, and the
public at large, bear a tremendous debt of gratitude for his genius in science
and for his perception of human need.
June 15, 1960
C. GUY SUITS
Vice-President and Director of Research
General Electric Company
Schenectady, New York
PREFACE TO VOLUME 5
THIS volume represents a continuation of the research work of Irving Langmuir
in the field of gas discharges. Practically all of these papers were written during
the 1920's and early 1930's. It is interesting to note that Langmuir originated
the word plasma to denote the luminous discharge regions, a term that is in
common use today.
Following Penning's discovery of oscillations in ionized gases, he, with
Lewi Tonks as co-author, wrote one of the more comprehensive and most
important papers in the field entitled "'General Theory of the Plasma of an
Arc".
Irving Langmuir, by his many papers, contributed greatly to the field of
plasma physics which is assuming a position of major importance in the field
of science today.
Dr. J. D. Cobine, research physicist at the General Electric Research Labo­
ratory, and an outstanding man in the field of plasma and oscillations, was
asked to write the contributed paper for this volume.
HAROLD E. WAY
Executive Editor
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